Finishing devices such as car finishing brushes and polishing or buffing devices are extensively utilized in automatic car and truck finishing machinery of the type wherein remotely or automatically controlled equipment is used to wash, wax, polish or buff the surface of the vehicle. Conventionally these finishing devices include a drum biased toward the vehicle, which drum rotates to cause finishing elements on the drum to wash, dry, polish or otherwise contact the vehicle surface.
For many years these finishing drums have constituted brushes in that the drum was provided with a plurality of elongated flexible brush bristles, such as flexible plastic filaments, for finishing contact with the vehicle surface. Many of the finishing devices, however, have now eliminated the use of bristles, and in place thereof have substituted finishing elements formed from flexible cloth pads. In a finishing device of this type, the drum is conventionally provided with mounting slots or grooves extending longitudinally along the periphery thereof, and each slot generally mounts therein one or more finishing pads, each of which is provided with a mounting part along an edge thereof for securement within the drum slot. The pad has a large number of parallel cuts or slits which project inwardly from the free edge thereof so as to form a plurality of elongated flexible strips which effectively contact the vehicle surface to perform the desired finishing operation.
Cloth pads of the general type mentioned above are now extensively utilized, and it is common practice to cut uniform parallel slits in the pad to produce these strips, which slits extend in substantially perpendicular relation to the drum axis when the pad is in a flat extended condition. The use of cloth pads improves the finish or sheen on the vehicle surface, but the cloth pads have their disadvantages. One problem with cloth pads is the considerable noise generated when the pad strikes the vehicle, so that typically the cloth pads are rotated at about two-thirds or less of the typical rotational speed of bristle brushes to decrease the noise level to an acceptable level. Cloth brushes are also slowed to minimize damage to vehicle protrusions such as windshield wipers and antennas. However, the quality of the vehicle finishing decreases when the rotational speed decreases since the vehicle is not being struck as many times with the finishing elements. Accordingly, an operator may slow the vehicle conveyor speed to accommodate the slower cleaning action of cloth brushes in order to improve the quality of the wash, although such is undesirable since it results in lowered vehicle finishing capacity.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide an improved vehicle finishing pad which is believed to provide an improved finishing operation.
More specifically, this invention relates to an improved vehicle finishing pad wherein the vehicle finishing pad is of the type having slits cut in the pad in patterns other than parallel, straight and perpendicular to the brush core or axis so that the individual strips make finishing contact with the vehicle surface over an area having a transverse width which is greater than the strip width. In the improved finishing pad of this invention, the slits in a preferred embodiment are cut in a curved fashion, thereby creating a longer edge surface on the strips and increasing the transverse contact area with the vehicle surface. In another embodiment, the slits may be straight lines cut at a skewed angle relative to the drum axis.
In the present invention, the finishing pad is preferably provided with slits which result in the pad strips having edges which are nonlinear so as to have longitudinally spaced edge portions which extend in angled relationship with respect to one another, whereby the nonlinear edge has increased frictional contact with the vehicle surface, as well as increased contact with the vehicle surface over a greater transverse area, so as to improve the quality of the finishing operation. The edge preferably is of an undulating curved configuration in the lengthwise extent thereof, such as having a configuration resembling a sine wave.
In the preferred embodiment, the undulating curved edges of each strip preferably extend in parallel relationship to one another so that the strip has a generally uniform width throughout the length thereof, and the transverse magnitude or displacement of the undulations is preferably of a magnitude which is a significant percentage of the strip width, and for example may be approximately equal to the strip width.
In alternative embodiments, the opposite edges of each strip may be disposed in nonparallel relationship, and the strip itself may be of nonuniform width throughout the length thereof, while still providing edges which result in increased transverse contact area with the vehicle so as to improve the finishing operation.
The pad of this invention also provides a high degree of flexibility with respect to the manner of mounting the pads on a rotating drum so as to vary and in fact increase the frictional contact of the pads with the vehicle to improve the finishing operation. For example, inasmuch as a plurality of pads are normally mounted on a rotary brush core in circumferentially spaced relationship therearound, with each of the pads being mounted so as to extend longitudinally of the brush core, the present invention enables some of the pads to be axially reversely mounted on the core relative to other pads. For example, selected angularly spaced pads or groups of pads, such as every other pad circumferentially around the brush core, can be reversely axially mounted on the core relative to the remaining pads. This results in the strip edges of the reversely oriented pads being disposed in circumferentially nonaligned relationship with the edges of the non-reversely oriented pads, thereby significantly increasing the friction and thus providing for a more aggressive cleaning or finishing action as the rotating cloth brush contacts the vehicle surface.
Other objects and purposes of the invention will be apparent to persons familiar with structures of this general type upon reading the following specification and inspecting the accompanying drawings.